Blog for the RepRap project at www.reprap.org - a project to create an open-source self-copying 3D printer. To get all the early posts on this blog with all the images as a single PDF visit this page.

Saturday, April 03, 2010

Hot copper and PLA

Acting on a suggestion from Vik, I have found that PLA can be extruded onto copper clad board and, if it is hot enough, it sticks very well. I have to flex the board to remove it. 55°C is too cold but 130°C works well. I haven't tried anything in between yet.

Assuming PLA will resist PCB etchant, this could be a way of making PCB's without a laser printer, albeit quite low resolution. With 0.3mm filament squashed to 0.24mm a single line would be 0.36mm wide, which is 14 thou.

im actually using a FR4 copper board on my Makerbot as a surface for heated build base, the temp needs to be higher, but it works very well. I have a bubble etch tank, will try this later! ive also tried putting a dremil onto it to see if it could mill a pcb - results good, tho a bit curvey!

Cool.I´m at Easterhegg, we have a RepMan,the heated copper-board from my ownRepMan (tMax currently 65°C but we can "overclock" that up to 200% to get higher)and a lot of PLA from the Makerbot on the next table.